Apr 12, 2014

I've Been Talking About This For Years. It's Absurd. It's Abusive. Why Don't People Care?

A few weeks ago, with no notice, the U.S. government intercepted Mary Grice’s tax refunds from both the IRS and the state of Maryland. Grice had no idea that Uncle Sam had seized her money until some days later, when she got a letter saying that her refund had gone to satisfy an old debt to the government — a very old debt.

When Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them

Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family — it’s not sure who — in 1977. After 37 years of silence, four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. Why the feds chose to take Mary’s money, rather than her surviving siblings’, is a mystery. ...

The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The way SSA goes after over-payments in general is despicable. However, this new game of reviving stale claims is unconscionable. Charles, you should try to get a class action going. Expensive to litigate? Sure it is. Some tough procedural hurdles? You bet. That is why you should look to a law school heavily invested in public interest law. Lots of cheap (not to mention energetic) labor and bright minds just looking for a good David v. Goliath fight. Look at a secret favorite of the Post's former Mistress and you may find the right law school. I'm on the inside or, I swear, I would get it going myself, I am so disgusted by this heavy handedness.

The disability portion of the trust fund is about to go belly up iin 2 years, no matter what is done. With an accounting trick we can shift $ to it to bring another fund closer to its brink and put off some hard choices. In the meantime if you had hundreds of billions of dollars of improperly paid benefits, would you not have an obligation to follow the law and try to collect the $? One lady has, through no fault of her own, collected 1/2 her husband's check, that she was entitled to, prior to her death, and her widow's share after he appsed. For many years both checks have come to her. The IG pointed this out twice to SSA and they did nothing - 'finality' they said. It was absurd. They were too busy planning dance sequences at conferences I guess. Only after publicity did they move to change the rule.

The collection effort is generally pretty mild in actual effect - someone does not get a refund or their SSI check is reduced by 10%. The T2 claims they try to recoup in 36 months.

I don't see solutions being offered nor advocated by the claimants' bar to solve the funding problem, or am I missinng something? Raise the cap on earnings? what efforts has NOSSCR made in that regard - probably none in reality. Sanction fraudulent rep.?

I think there will be a class action someday. I understand attempting to collect debt from adults who are at fault for their overpayments, but this practice of coming after people who are in their 20s/30s who haven't received benefits since they turned 18 and are contingently liable for someone else's overpayment that they didn't even know about.. yeah, ridiculous.

The contingently liable concept is a hard one to swallow. In the case of Sadie Grice, there are a few 'journalists' who have incorrectly defined this as an adult who has become responsible for a parent's debt. The real question that will never be answered is why the payee, apparently the mother, wasn't held liable for repayment. Oh yeah, payees not liable to the extent that they spend the money on the recipient. Since the recipient got the benefit of the money, the recipient is liable. Payee accounting, in many cases, is a joke. The forms don't truly show what the payee did with the funds and there is no evidence to verify it one way or another.

Anon at 12:46: I think part of Ms. Grice's complaint is that, 37 years after the fact, SSA is either unwilling, or, more likely, unable, to tell her when the overpyament occurred; it may well have occurred after she left the home.

Charles, fastest response I have ever seen: The Acting Commissioner of Social Security issued the following statement this afternoon:

Statement of Carolyn W. Colvin

Acting Commissioner of Social Security

“I have directed an immediate halt to further referrals under the Treasury Offset Program to recover debts owed to the agency that are 10 years old and older pending a thorough review of our responsibility and discretion under the current law to refer debt to the Treasury Department.

If any Social Security or Supplemental Security Income beneficiary believes they have been incorrectly assessed with an overpayment under this program, I encourage them to request an explanation or seek options to resolve the overpayment.”